


Holidazed

by Whyndancer



Series: Scattered Memories [8]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Christmas Tree Farms!, Christmas with family is Stressful, F/M, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Like ninety-five percent fluff, Loki Has Issues, Loki's first Christmas, Lumberjack!Thor, Minor Jane Foster/Thor, Thor tries, and No Feelings Whatsoever, at all, but nothing explicit, cookie decorating, denial is not just a river in egypt, mentions of (an awful lot of) sex, movie marathons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-17 20:30:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16981287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whyndancer/pseuds/Whyndancer
Summary: Loki had just dropped a six inch stack of folders bursting with printouts and articles clipped from magazines and newspapers on the desk in front of her.  This was not an entirely unprecedented event, as the longer he stayed on ‘Midgard’ the more he found to pique his curiosity, but his previous record was less than two inches, and those folders had not been alternating red and green.Loki's First Christmas





	Holidazed

**Author's Note:**

> When I started writing this, in December of _2016_ , I thought it would be a fairly short thing, 2k max. It did not stay short, and required me to work out a lot more of Darcy's background and family history as well as a moer concrete timeline for the series as a whole. I finished it the last day of July. So here we are, two years and almost ten thousand words later. I hope you all like it as much as I do.

“Wut.”

Okay, so maybe that was inarticulate even for her, but Loki had just dropped a six inch stack of folders bursting with printouts and articles clipped from magazines and newspapers on the desk in front of her.  This was not an entirely unprecedented event, as the longer he stayed on ‘Midgard’ the more he found to pique his curiosity, but his previous record was less than two inches, and those folders had not been alternating red and green.

“What do you mean, ‘what?’ . You’ve said many times that if I had questions about human culture I should bring them to you and you would help me answer them. I have brought such inquiries to you before and you have been most helpful. I find myself with new questions and have come once again to avail myself of the vast font of seemingly useless knowledge you possess.  Unless said well is running dry?“ Loki’s response was, of course, delivered with a perfectly irritating mix of sarcasm and condescension that made her want to twist one of his pretty little ears off, tempered by just enough just enough genuine enthusiasm and curiosity to make her want to help him anyway. Naturally, she wasn’t about to let that attitude slide without an equal amount of snark in return. 

“Look dude, I’m sure even you can excuse my surprise here. I mean, you’ve managed to exceed your previous levels of cluelessness by over four inches of cross-indexed printouts, don’t think I don’t see the tabs, and you can’t expect me to ignore the fact that those tabs are freaking metallic and glitter.  And why do we even have red and green folders?” She poked gingerly at the topmost folder, glittered tabs bouncing gently at the motion. “Yeah, that would throw anybody off their game.”

“I believe Jane bought them last month when she decided to help organize the lab. If I’m not mistaken the green ones were intended to hold notes she’d taken after talking with me and the red ones for information from and about Thor. There are several other colors still in the supply cabinet.”

Darcy suppressed a full body wince. “Oh Gods. The color coding project.  You have no fucking idea how glad I was when that anomaly popped up over Yellowstone the next day.  It took me almost the entire two days she was gone to fix what she’d screwed up. Does she really think I don’t have a system?” She sat quietly for a moment, her unfocused gaze approaching a ‘thousand yard stare’ as she recalled the experience, then shook herself, eyes snapping up to meet his look of quiet amusement. “Nice job, by the way, of answering the only question phrased as a question while completely ignoring all of the implicit questions that were actually relevant to the situation at hand.” Loki’s eyes went wide and limpid as he affected the most saccharine ‘innocent face’ she’d ever seen in her life.  Her own eyes narrowed as she fought conflicting impulses to either punch him or burst out laughing. “Well, smartass? Keep talking. Why do I have six inches of red and green and glitter on my desk?”

He dispensed with the innocent act, letting the corner of his mouth slide back up into a half-smirk.  “And now you’ve failed to specify if I should say why there is so much or why it’s red and green. Luckily for you, the answers to both questions are the same.“  He took a moment to sit and settle into the empty chair next to hers - a chair that had not been there five seconds prior mind you - before continuing. “I have taken a particular interest in your varied Midgardian holidays since Halloween. As odd as some of that was, the basic idea was in fact quite delightful, and I began looking into other such events.”

“Which would actually explain why you were so eager to help cook for Thanksgiving. I still think that was the best turkey I’ve ever had, by the way, and if you tell Grandma Lewis I said that, I swear to any freakin god you want that I will make you suffer.”

“Noted.” The tiny smile that played about his lips gave the impression that he found her threats amusing. “In any case, even before your Thanksgiving, beginning on the first of November actually, I started seeing posts and articles about a holiday that isn’t scheduled until the end of December. Naturally such enthusiasm warranted further investigation.  Unfortunately, my preliminary research seems to have turned up more questions than answers. I can see a number of similarities to some of the old Norse traditions that I remember from my youth, but there is also a vast amount of variation in how various cultures across your world celebrate it today and it seems as though there has been major interference and restructuring by other religions, Christianity in particular.   The more I learn, the more oddities I seem to turn up, and so I have come to the resident cultural ‘expert’ to see if you can answer my questions about this ‘Christmas’ event.”

She wasn’t exactly surprised. That much red and green would ping ‘Christmas’ in most people's heads even in the middle of May.  But considering the ridiculous amount of material in front of her and the unconventional source thereof, she had been holding on to her denial like a cat with its claws in the comfy sweater you really wanted to wear today. She shook her head gently in mild disbelief as she flipped open the first of the folders in the stack. 

"Holy shit Loki... where the hell did you even get 13 folders of questions about christmas. I’m not sure if I should be reassured at this point that you seem to have it cross-indexed or even more intimidated.” Darcy browsed the neatly organized documents. She saw a handful of things that she knew she would be able to provide meaningful context for without too much trouble, but most of it… “What the fucking hell... I haven't even heard of like a tenth of this.” She paused on one particularly confounding picset. “What The Fuck, Japan. KFC for Christmas? I don't even..."  Darcy allowed herself the luxury of letting her sentence trail off into a somewhat petulant whine. She looked back at the demi-god seated beside her only to see raised eyebrows and mild disappointment. “Oh fuck you. You do not get to give me that look. I think Christmas is fun and all, but my parents aren’t at all religious so Christmas at our house was as secular as it gets. Anyway, what I’m saying is that while I enjoy all the pageantry and pretty things that The Holiday Season brings, you’ve kind of caught me at a weak point. I mean, watching a kid get his tongue stuck to a flagpole once a year is great but beyond knowing that Kermit makes the best Bob Cratchit ever, I’m afraid this is one knowledge skill that I’ve put zero points into.” 

He look he sent her way was perfectly balanced between wry amusement and long suffering exasperation.  “And yet in trying to tell my you have nothing to teach me about the event you’ve managed to make at least three references that I did not understand. It would help if you could at least give me some direction in which to take my reading. Midgardians do so many strange things that the reading I’ve done on my own has created more questions than it’s answered. Who are all these different Saints? And why are Yule Logs edible? And what do soda drinking polar bears have to do with anything?”

“...Fuck.” Darcy heaved the biggest most long-suffering sigh she could produce on short notice and pushed herself away from the desk. “You couldn’t have asked me some of these questions before? Or maybe waited ‘til after the semester’s over?  I’m knee deep in term papers and studying for finals. I know I showed you Nightmare Before Christmas already, and that you liked it enough to do a kickass Jack Skellington costume for your first Halloween.”

“And I was nearly as confused about this Christmas thing as Jack was. When do you think I started collecting questions? Besides, you’ve been looking at the same page of your digital text for nearly half an hour. I am quite familiar with this sort of mental fatigue before examinations. It will do you no good to try and study further until you’ve had a break.” 

“Ugh. Alright.” She pushed her glasses up to rub at her tired eyes. “You have a point. So. Christmas. I’m assuming that you've at least looked up the basics yourself and that we don't have to get out a Bible again?” She continued at his nod of affirmation. “Go ahead and get out your tablet and look up Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.  It should be available in full text online. That’s as good a starting place as any. Keep in mind that the author was pretty much paid by the word* when reading it, though. His tendency to tell you the same thing four different ways gets old pretty quick otherwise. While you’re reading, I’m off to see how many Christmas movies I can round up.”

*****************************************

When Darcy realized that she had a grand total of two and a half Christmas movies in her otherwise extensive dvd collection (A Muppet Christmas Carol and White Christmas; Nightmare Before Christmas only counted as half) she realized that an Expedition was called for.  She grabbed her coat and hat and scarf and alternated layering with scanning through Netflix and Hulu to see what was available there (not a lot of merit). Luckily, it seemed like Spotify and YouTube had her covered on the music front.

Once she was sufficiently bundled, she snagged her purse and made her way back to the office above the lab where Loki was still lounging in his conjured chair. He was reading from the StarkTab that he had gotten a couple of months ago. She still didn’t know where or how he’d gotten his hands on it and she wasn’t sure wanted to.  

“Get in the car, loser. We’re going shopping.”

He looked up at her with a glare. “Must you quote that ridiculous movie every time we go out?”

“Yup.” She popped the ‘p’ for maximum annoyance. “We’re going to need an actual facts brick and mortar library for this. A big one. And probably a Best Buy.”

He rolled his eyes in that particular way he had for when he knew she was being deliberately annoying. It somehow incorporated movement of his head and shoulders into a gesture that managed to convey a specific sense of resigned tolerance in a way that was profoundly eloquent. She had to admit, though never to him, that it was impressive.   Still, he stood and poofed his reading chair away, and his Asgardian Lounging Clothes (a loose, embroidered tunic and soft, loose pants of a fabric she couldn’t quite identify. And slippers, she would never get over the slippers) shimmered into a forest green v-neck sweater (probably cashmere) over a steel gray dress shirt (possibly silk), leather pants that fit like sin, and fancy leather shoes that looked like they belonged on a runway in New York or Milan.  A black peacoat with gold detailing that she’s seen him magic up before was draped over his arm and a black scarf with gold knotwork hung loose around his neck.

“Overdressed much?” she snarked. “It’s like you’re  _ trying  _ to make me look frumpy”

“It’s hardly my fault that you’re so fond of bland, oversize knitwear.”

“Asshole. Let’s just get going already.”

***********************************************************************************

It was just after nine in the morning when they left, and they didn’t make it back until almost midnight.

They had scoured both the public and university libraries for both reference material and popular media, (she was taking graduate courses there which gave her access, but Loki had produced a card that let him borrow books as well without anyone questioning them, so…) before hitting the local mall, the movie section of Best Buy and, much to Loki’s dismay, stocking up at Walmart as their last stop before going home.  The back of the car sagged with the weight of a trunk full of groceries, and dozens of books and movies and assorted bags and boxes of holiday lights and decorations jammed into the backseat. By the time they pulled into the drive, her eyelids were sagging just as hard.

The rest of the stuff would keep in the car ‘til tomorrow, but regardless of whether or not it was set to freeze overnight the frozen goods and other cold food probably needed to go in. To her surprise, her puppy eyes apparently worked on Loki when she asked if he would pretty please poof the cold stuff into the fridge and freezer where it belonged.  She would totally have made with the positive reinforcement, but when she sat down on the bed to take her boots off, her body decided that it was not getting up again, thankyouverymuch, and that sleep was happening sooner rather than later regardless of her brain’s (or libido’s) opinion on the matter. 

As she drifted off she couldn’t help but think what a shame it was. She’d really been looking forward to peeling him out of those leather pants.

When she woke up the next morning to find herself tucked under the covers wearing green flannel pajamas and fuzzy socks instead of sprawled awkwardly on top having lost only her coat and boots, she decided the positive reinforcement thing was a definite must.  She caught him in the shower, and went down on him until he saw stars. He then proceeded to show her that shower sex was 100% less awkward and 1000% more awesome and mind blowing with someone who was strong enough to hold you up without support the entire time.

Since Thor and Jane still weren’t back from their trip, and Darcy’d finished most of the work Jane left for her, she hoped she could bribe or bully Loki into helping her finish her term papers tomorrow. That way, she she could probably get away with taking another day to help with this whole winter holiday crash course, as long as she studied while he was watching movies.

She made a couple of quick posts on tumblr and twitter asking people to hit her with their best christmas/winter holiday knowledge “sources please if at all possible”, and dragged Loki down to help her get everything else out of the car, because “It’s your damn project in the first place, dude.”

The first DvD out of the bag was a Classic Christmas Claymation Compilation, which she popped in the player to run while they sorted out the rest of their haul.  As they went through the dvds, both the ones they’d purchased and the ones borrowed from the library, she stacked them in piles according to the general order in which she decided they should be viewed. She lined up the old cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas - digging the book out of the stack to be read first, Miracle on 34th Street, Home Alone, Frosty the Snowman, and, since she’d thankfully already introduced Loki to Peanuts, A Charlie Brown Christmas.  She stacked the books that had movie adaptations for him to read next, so that she could start playing those movies later. 

****************************************************************************

After Jane and Thor got back the next day, Darcy pretty much had to leave Loki to his own devices with the collected research material, because between finals and assisting Jane, Darcy barely had enough time to breathe let alone marathon Christmas movies.  Loki was… remarkably patient during this time. Though he did still pull his disappearing act at one point to do whatever it was that he did when he wasn’t there (something to do with preparing for the evil overlord dude who’d apparently been pulling Loki’s strings during his stint at world conquest). He even helped her frame her arguments for some of her essays and rubbed her neck with his magic fingers when she got a crick from hunching. And somehow she always had coffee when she needed it. Which was probably just because he wanted her do be done with it all as soon as possible so that she could get back to being his Midgardian cultural interpreter.  No other reason. Especially since Thor had taken an interest in their project, despite having spent three holiday seasons on Earth already. 

Jane had stepped up when Thor got involved, doing her best to translate the books and movies for the guys. She also did an admirable job of keeping a variety of Christmas music lined up on the sound system, but she tended to derailed or bogged down with details and distractions.  And while Thor was perfectly happy to listen to Jane ramble off topic, Loki found it rather frustrating. The lack of sex probably played into it as well. Darcy knew she was feeling it.

When the last paper was turned in and her last final had been taken, she stopped on the way back from town to pick up some decidedly alcoholic eggnog and enough baking supplies to feed an army.  She was 100% determined not to end the night sober, but Christmas cookies were on the menu for tomorrow. Loki was also on the menu, but she hadn’t decided if that was for tomorrow or tonight. It really depended on him, and on how drunk she got.

*******************************************************************************

The next morning saw Darcy waking deliciously sore and delightfully sated.  Loki had barely let her get tipsy before spiriting her away for several rounds of vigorous stress relief, most of which had included one or more of his magic clones. Apparently she was the only one who’d been fully sated, though, because he invited himself into her morning shower and provided a very convincing argument on how deliciously sore was not the same as too sore.

As they got dressed and started breakfast, though, she couldn’t help but notice that he still seemed really uptight and antsy for a guy who’d had at minimum six orgasms in the last ten hours. (She’d kinda lost track what with the multiple clones and all.)  When he started actually brooding over his coffee she decided that enough was enough.

“Okay Ebenezer,” She ignored the dirty look he shot her at the nickname. “for someone who was going balls to the walls on trying to learn All the Christmas Ever last time I checked, you are seriously lacking in the Christmas Spirit right now. What gives?”

He huffed, jaw clenching slightly in that particular way he had that was really almost a pout.  It was absolutely fucking adorable, not that she would ever tell him that.

“Thor,” he spat, and damn if there wasn’t as much bitterness and resentment in that one syllable as she’d heard from him since he’d first got here, “has decreed that we ‘absolutely must have a Christmas Tree’ and that ‘this Caroling business sounds delightful and we all must go’.”

Darcy was proud of herself for not voicing her immediate reaction of ‘so what?’.  They had obviously managed to blunder into some kind of emotional minefield here and she would really prefer to avoid any explosions here. She took a moment to compose her reply. “I get that you’re upset, but I don’t really understand why.  I was kind of planning on suggesting those things myself, so it would be helpful to know why you don’t want to do them.” 

He glared at her a moment, lips tight, then looked pointedly away, his posture shifting from mildly petulant to downright sulky.  She would have been ready to give up on getting an answer, but she noticed his fingers flexing against the crook of his crossed arms, and that he kept shifting and clenching his jaw like he was chewing on something tough and distasteful.  Sure enough, after a couple of minutes of restrained fidgeting, still staring at the opposite side of the room, he responded.

“Thor has been here for years now. This will be, what, his fourth Christmastime on Midgard? And yet he knows no more about it than I do. It's obvious that he never cared to learn about it before.” The words came quietly, both resigned and resentful. “Now that  _ I _ am showing interest in it, though,  he has thrown himself into the planning with abandon and practically commandeered the entire project.  And so, once again, Thor has taken one of my interests and made it entirely about himself.” He sighed. “I suppose I should be grateful he hasn’t decided to mock me for it.” 

Well shit. She’d managed to find the landmine right off the bat and it was a damned big one. She seriously wasn’t qualified for this.  Still, she did have an idea on how to maybe defuse it a bit. 

“I can see how that would be annoying. And, like, I realize that you and Thor have hundreds of years of history that I don’t know about. But dude, you should know even better than I do that Thor is not exactly a master of tact and honestly wouldn’t know subtle if it bit him. I’m like ninety percent positive that this is him attempting to reconnect with you and completely failing to pick up on subtext. Or really even think the whole thing through. He’s getting better, but still…” She trailed off, rolling her eyes theatrically. A quick glance over at Loki told her it was working.  The scowl had faded back to a pout and the look in his eyes was more wry now than bitter. “And hey, look at it this way, familial friction is definitely a widespread holiday tradition, so you can take heart in the fact that you are very much not alone in wanting to strangle your relatives over Christmas.”

His lips twitched up into an incredulous little half-smile, a question in his eyes.

“Dude, I shit you not, way too much time with family in close quarters on top of the stress of planning all the kind of stuff we’ve been planning will have even the most functional of families at each other’s throats occasionally.  Even with my family, who are about as supportive, non-judgy, low pressure as you can get, putting all of us in close proximity during the holidays is massive stress.”

“And what does your family that keeps them from wanting to do each other harm when things start getting stressful?”

“If it looks like it’s gonna turn into a fight, we step back, cool down, and then sit and talk it out.  Usually we wind up sussing out other things that are stressing us and clearing the air on them. Also snowball fights.”

His lip twitched a bit at the mention of snowball fights, but for the most part her answer had put him back in drama queen pensive mode.

Darcy sighed.  “Okay, look, I’ll talk to Thor this  _ one time _ ,” she told the sulking demigod, “but only if you swear that you will sit down and actually talk shit out with Thor as soon as we can find a qualified, trustworthy mediator.  And don’t expect me to do the mediation thing because A.) I Am Not Qualified and B.) it’s hard to be properly impartial when one of the parties you are mediating between has had their tongue on every part of you. Possibly in the previous twenty four hours.”

She really should have seen it coming, honestly she couldn’t have given him a better setup if she’d tried, and yet she still managed to be caught off guard by the sudden wicked glint in his eye.

“I can think of other things that are hard when I’ve had my tongue on every part of you,” he leered, a salacious grin stretching across his face.  

Her eyes rolled again at his obviously exaggerated reaction; a clear attempt at deflection, “For reals, Loki. You need to do this.  It’s important.”

The moment stretched out as his comical expression faded to a more sober one. She was so focused on his face, the way he’d pursed his lips and how he seemed to be worrying them with his teeth, that she jumped a little when his hand came up to cover hers on the table.

“You have my word, Darcy.”  The words were spoken with a quiet solemnity that nearly gave her goosebumps. "I will see if I can find someone suitable to mediate so that my brother and I can have talk that it seems we sorely need.  And thank you, Darcy, for helping me see this a bit more clearly."

She shrugged, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the unexpected level of sincerity.  "Sure, I mean, it's not like it doesn't make it better for all of us."

He seemed to notice her unease and thankfully went back to eating his breakfast, finally plowing through the pile of scrambled eggs on his plate.   She was pretty sure he'd put almost a dozen eggs in the pan and for the umpteenth time since Thor had come back to stay on earth she silently thanked the gods of commerce for warehouse bulk grocery stores. Though she’d still found herself looking up what went into keeping chickens.

 

She cornered Thor just before lunch and sat him down for a gentle reminder that trying to build shared interests, especially with Loki, really wasn't best served by taking over all the planning and making it more about him than about the person who he was trying to connect with.  His stricken look was more than enough to confirm her suspicion that he had honestly been trying to connect with Loki, and was really just that clueless when it came to his brother. It was honestly kind of sad. As was Thor's face right now. 

"Look dude, miscommunication is a problem in all relationships; familial, romantic, platonic or whatever.  It seems like you and your little bro are just really bad at understanding each other cause you're so different.  I know it's frustrating, but it's not something that can't be overcome. You just need some help, and before you ask, like I already told Loki, I'm not really qualified to help you guys the way you need.   But he's going to be looking for someone who  _ is _ qualified, and I'll keep my ear to the ground and we'll figure it out."

And with that she'd done her part, and hopefully they could get back to their Holiday Extravaganza without any more drama.  Or at least not much drama. Fingers crossed.

And it seemed to be working. In any case, the great Christmas cookies bake off that afternoon was a smashing success, almost literally when Thor got a little bit over enthusiastic with the rolling pin.  They baked somewhere in the vicinity of three and a half hundred cookies, of several different varieties along with half a dozen mincemeat pies for dinner that night before they turned the oven off. Darcy had collected recipes for dozens more meals and baked goods from various winter holiday traditions across the country and the world, but she firmly believed in pacing herself.  Also, while the two asgardians were effectively humanoid trash compactors, she and Jane could only eat so much holiday cooking at a time before exploding.

A little over a hundred of the cookies baked were sugar and or gingerbread cookies for decorating.  After taking a break for dinner, Darcy pulled out the colored frosting, small candies and assorted sprinkles she'd prepped earlier and they attacked the blank cookies with all the enthusiasm of a band of Asgardian warriors headed off to Glorious Battle. (Loki may have rolled his eyes and buried his face in the pillow when she made the comparison to him a couple nights later, but she could see his shoulders shaking so she counted it as a win.)  While the results weren't exactly fine art, both Loki and Jane proved surprisingly deft with a piping bag, and they were all colorful and delicious and decorating them had been an absolute blast.

When the last cookie had been iced, and four all of them were sticky and colorful and in various stages of sugar coma, they sat together at the table and worked out a plan.  Thor had thankfully learned his lesson and let Loki take the lead, making the occasional quiet suggestion while Darcy filled in the basic outline that Loki had worked up. Jane was more or less bemusedly along for the ride, but she did chip in with a few good ideas as well. 

The end result was a plan that filled the next three weeks with a dizzying whirl of cooking and decorating, movie marathons and 'cultural immersion field trips'.  

They wound up going all out with the tree, making a day of it and actually driving out to a farm where you could cut your own tree fresh.  In preparation for the outing, Loki had produced a handheld lumberjack style axe from ...somewhere. It was large, heavy and beautifully made, and looked to be both incredibly old and in perfect condition.  It also seemed to have some kind of significant meaning for the brothers, because Thor had been on the verge of tears when Loki had handed it to him. Watching the burly blond giving it a few test swings in the yard had prompted Darcy to raid his closet and put together the most Lumberjack chic outfit possible, hand him the pile of clothes and tell him, with a perfectly straight face that if he wanted to do this right, this was the required dress code.  Jane almost blew her cover, but she too was a big fan of Lumberjack!Thor and finally lost her internal battle in favor of seconding the dress code story. Darcy was pretty sure that Loki hadn't actually believed her for a second, but his sense of humor seemed to have kicked in and he too had shown up that morning decked out in denim and flannel from head to toe, only substituting green plaid for Thor's red. If Darcy had been asked to imagine him in flannel she would have bet money that he'd look like a hipster, but even next to Thor his arms and shoulders (and legs and thighs) had more than enough muscle tone and definition that he fit the image of rugged lumberjack almost as well as Thor.  All he was missing was the beard. Which would have been total overkill for one day, and really fucking weird besides. Loki + beard = no. Just... No. She knew he was in on the joke because of the 'picture of innocence' look he gave her when looked askance at his clothing choices. Flannel and fleece, denim, wool and winter boots, they all four bundled into the van and took off.

The tree farm was beautiful and huge and Thor must have cashed in some sort of weather god favor or something because there'd been a light dusting of snow the night before and the day itself dawned clear and just cold enough to keep the snow from melting so everything was shining and glittery and magical.   Thor and Jane wandered off together holding hands and giving each other calf eyes, leaving Darcy and Loki to debate the finer points of what made for a perfect tree. Which was equal parts frustrating and amusing for Darcy because while she had more first hand experience with 'Christmas' trees, she'd never had that much of a say in choosing the tree when she lived with her parents and Loki, despite having never personally done anything like this before, had done Research.  Which was kinda hilarious. He kept looking at ones that were taller and more slender. Kind of like him. She had her eye on a cute little 5 footer that was a bit on the round side with lots of branch tips sticking way out for prime ornament hanging. In the end it was Jane who picked the winning tree. Apparently she and her parents used to go to farms like this almost every year when she was little and this was the first time she'd done it without them. 

The tree she'd found was enormous, probably over fifteen feet if Darcy was estimating correctly (it looked to be at least three Janes high, so really, fifteen feet minimum) which was way taller than any tree that Darcy had seen outside of, like, business offices, but the lab definitely had high enough ceilings to accommodate it.  The branches were full and well spaced, it was mostly symmetrical and it was just as huge around at the base... probably as wide as the van was long. Loki held the branches near the base up and out of the way while Thor took the axe off of his belt and removed the guard. Each blow bit far deeper into the trunk than seemed reasonable, and the tree was falling almost before Darcy realized they were close.  Loki guided it as it fell, partly with his hand and partly with magic, and then sent a rope spooling out of thin air to wrap around and around the branches, pushing them up and together so that it could be carried. Darcy cast one last longing glance at the cute little one she'd liked so much, and ran up ahead of them to guide them out.

The proprietor had kind of side-eyed Thor as they'd come in and been shown around, but went completely slack jawed upon seeing the massive tree so easily carried along on the shoulders of just the two men.  Considering a tree that size probably weighed several hundred pounds and was unwieldy as hell, the sentiment was understandable. Securing it to the top of the van was another matter entirely, as it turned out that the tree was more than a little bit taller than the van was long,  and even tied up to reduce it's profile was at least the same width. Luckily, Loki had plenty more of his magic rope, though he made it look like it was coming out of a bag in the back of the van rather than thin air this time. When he was done it still didn't really look secure, but the chances of it coming loose accidentally were probably in the vicinity of negative eighty percent. They paid the still dumbfounded manager, who recovered just in time to sell them a tree stand that would actually hold the oversized fir properly.  

The return trip went off without a hitch, though driving with a three hundred plus pound tree that was longer than the van was a bit of an adventure in itself.  Jane was the one who took over giving direction when they finally got back, getting the brothers to set up a wash basin just outside the lab doors and getting the hose out to fill it most of the way.  Darcy was given the task of heating enough water to add to what was in the basin that the final result would be warm while Thor made a fresh cut at the base of the trunk. Once the tree was set to soaking up as much water as it could, and they'd had a break for lunch the rest of the day was spent on acquiring decorations that would fit a tree that size.  Heading back to the shopping center in town probably wasn't going to do them much good, they'd decided over sandwiches, because as cool as her personal collection of geeky and nerdy ornaments was, they needed really big ornaments for their really big tree and most of the huge ornaments that you could get at a moments notice were borderline tacky and largely impersonal.  It was, surprisingly, Thor who suggested both a theme and a solution.

"Loki, do you remember when we were first taught the what the realms looked like, and what was beyond them?"  Thor asked the question quietly, 

"Yes... we were meant to memorize the general composition of all of Yggdrasil and the nearest, what, twenty or so star systems?  You moaned and whinged about it for weeks, going on and on about how you rather be training with Tyr." Loki responded with exasperated fondness, rolling his eyes at the memory.

"I'll freely admit that I often found the classroom boring in comparison to physical training, but you'd always help me out, and to help me remember the star systems you created that enormous illusion, stars and planets, all brought to life in a way I understood so much better than seeing them on flat paper or screens. " Thor smiled sadly. "Did I ever thank you for that? For all the ways you helped me in our lessons?" 

The dark haired brother shrugged in mild discomfort, "It matters little now, but I think I see where you are going with this." He pulled a sack from his pocket and poured half a dozen glass spheres from it onto the tablecloth.  "I'll still need anchors if I'm to set it to run on it's own, but these should do well," he said, picking up one of them and focusing on it, until it seemed to expand to the size of a basketball, color and light swirling across the surface to form a perfect image of Earth, complete with clouds moving across the skys.  He lifted it above the table and left it hanging in the air above them, then took another and another so that soon the entire solar system bobbed gently over their heads. 

Thor sat back back in his chair absolutely radiating pride, while Jane and Darcy watched in awe as even more planets, ones no human had ever seen, joined the display along with  comets, meteors and even small galaxy models. 

"Dude," Darcy finally broke the silence, " that is so fucking cool."

"It's perfect." Jane's voice was soft, and when Darcy looked over, she could see that her eyes were shining with tears of quiet joy. "Thank you. Both of you." 

Loki simply shrugged again, but he was smiling as well, and Thor just beamed harder.

Magic was officially Darcy's favorite thing ever.  Never mind that this really was not any kind of traditional way to decorate a christmas tree, she had not been looking forward to finding enough lights to light up one hundred and seventy one inches (the official final measurement) of frasier fir.  Loki's method, enchanting thousands of tiny motes of light that twinkled and sparkled like stars to settle in amongst the branches was not only more convenient, but fucking gorgeous as well. They'd found swaths of deep purple and blue sparkly chiffon to wind around the tree like garlands and Loki's celestial ornaments were set amongst the branches; a panoply of moon and stars and planets from all nine realms and beyond.  A miniature Sun burned brightly at the top. So no, it wasn't the least bit traditional, but it couldn't have been more perfect for the four of them.

Once they had the tree and all the rest of the decorations up, they returned to movie marathons and 24/7 holiday music and cooking and baking new recipes everyday.  They cooked so much, in fact, that Darcy got to put actual leftovers in the fridge for the first time in months. There were pies everywhere, three kinds of fruitcake and an attempt at a yule log cake that belonged on a blog of pinterest fails. There were roast turkeys and hams and ducks, soups and stews and casseroles in a wide sampler of traditional (and contemporary) Christmas feasts from all over the world that would culminate on December 25th with a catering order of KFC, because that was an actual Thing in Japan and they would all be super done with the kitchen by then in any case.

In between the movies and books and cooking and caroling, after the trip to the mall to see the kids getting their pictures with 'Santa' and for ice skating but before taking a trip into the fancy suburbs outside of the larger city a couple hours out to look at the crazy christmas light displays that got put up, Darcy freaked out about presents.  Family presents weren't bothering her much, most of those had been bought, delivered and wrapped months ago and were waiting in the back of her closet til she left for the Lewis-Miller Big Holiday Shindig which was always a few days after Christmas for easier travel plans. 

It was the people she lived with and worked with and loved just as much as she did the family she'd grown up in that she was having trouble shopping for.  Jane was hard to shop for because she had a limited number of interests outside of AstroPhysics and Darcy had A.) already exhausted most of her good gift ideas for the scientist, and B.) not seen anything while out in the stores that inspired new ones.  At least not since Thor had stolen her first idea. Thor was hard to shop for because he was a Literal Prince. It was the classic 'what to get the guy who has everything' dilemma. And Loki, well, it was the same thing as Thor with the added complication of the nature of their relationship. She'd actually had a couple of ideas that she'd nixed immediately for being way too sentimental for a no strings attached 'friend with benefits'.  But leaving him out at this point would be even more suspect. This was supposed to be a cultural immersion thing and presents were a big part of the holiday. And so she stressed. 

It was a skype call from her brother Mika that finally gave her the idea.  Mika owned maybe three shirts that were not some kind of nerdy, snarky graphic T-shirt.  That day he'd been wearing one that had the molecular model of caffeine emblazoned across the front, and when she noticed, it was like a lightbulb had gone off in her head.  As soon as the call ended she'd plunged into the vast array of t-shirt websites and their seemingly infinite offerings, making a bookmark folder for each of her problem giftees.  She probably went a little bit overboard when it came to actually ordering, but once she started looking there were just too many awesome tees to choose just one for each of them.

The shirts trickled in from all the different sites she'd ordered from, even paying extra for quick delivery, as things just took longer at this time of year. She was still waiting on the last two, one for Jane and one for Loki when the demi-god himself pulled her aside one evening when she came back from a shopping trip. 

"Dude, what's the rush?" she asked as he steered her through the building to her rooms on the far side of the lab.

"It concerns your gift," he answered as they walked, "I realize that we have a few days yet before gifts are traditionally exchanged, but I felt that this particular gift would benefit from an earlier delivery."

He stopped just outside the door of his apartment, with an almost gleeful grin/smirk on his face (and possibly a touch of nerves, but that was really none of her business, now was it?)  " It's a bit too big to wrap, so it's waiting for you in your sitting room." 

Darcy was about seventy percent super curious,  twenty percent excited and ten percent worried at this point, because she had absolutely no idea what she was about to find on the other side of the door.  She glanced once more at the demi-god grinning down at her before pushing open the door. Her jaw dropped. In the middle of her living room, sitting in a mildly ostentatious stand, was a shortish, rather round and pudgy Christmas tree, with plenty of branches sticking out for primo ornament hanging.  Unless she was losing her mind, it was the exact same tree that she'd been so enamoured with at the farm, but had let go in favor of Jane's 'perfect' pick. 

"But... we already have a Christmas tree..." Confusion and delight warred both on her face and in her voice, as she stepped up to the tree and gently ran her hand over the branches.

“True, but if my research is at all accurate, the tree we have in the lab, while lovely, is more than a bit unusual. I thought we might decorate this one in a slightly more conventional fashion. Not too conventional though, that wouldn't suit you or I at all." He gestured to a brown paper shopping bag that she hadn't noticed yet, sitting at the foot of the tree.  Inside were two boxes of Christmas ornaments; a set of Hogwarts house crests, and a dozen four inch lightsabers in a rainbow of colors. 

She stared a moment at the packages, not quite sure what to feel.  Finally she settled on stoked, pushing all the other potentially problematic emotions off a mental cliff, and looked up at Loki with a bright grin. "Dude, these are awesome! Where'd you get them? When did you get them?"

He lifted one shoulder in an insouciant little shrug and leaned back against the door frame.  "I had business in London recently and they caught my eye. It's a little enough thing." 

"Awesome.  Let's get started." 

Darcy pulled her little box of ornaments down from the closet, a hodgepodge collection of nerdery and random pretty things that she'd gotten from friends and impulse purchases alike for the last several years, and borrowed the air popper from the main kitchen to pop a whole jar of plain popcorn, (snagging the crock of wassail she'd put on earlier while she was there) and showing Loki how to string them together with needle and thread.  It took approximately ten minutes for him to be stringing popcorn about three times faster and more accurately than she was, prompting her to pelt him with a handful of kernels before going to hunt down the tree lights she'd purchased on that first shopping trip weeks ago. 

And so the afternoon was spent cramming as many lights and ornaments and garland and tinsel and other assorted pretty shiny things onto her little tree as they could fit, cheerfully bickering about the best place to hang each bauble and trinket and gorging themselves on gingerbread, Christmas candy and wassail. 

She lazed on her little couch that evening, sitting hip to knee with an equally indolent Loki, both of them in mild sugar comas, and admired the finished product.  It was bright and colorful and you could barely see the branches for all the decorations they'd piled on, and she adored it. 

"Hey Loki?"

"Hmmm?"

"Thanks."

Christmas day dawned gray and cold and damp, with not even a chance of snow to make up for the ick.  Darcy may have spent a good five minutes glowering at Thor over breakfast before he noticed and asked what was troubling her.

"Dude, this is super sub-optimal weather, what gives?" she whined.  Thor gaped a moment in response, before Loki answered for him.

"Unfortunately, Miss Lewis, God of Thunder though he may be, Thor is not, in fact, capable of controlling the weather at will," he drawled, snagging a danish from the platter in the middle of the table.  Thor pouted and Darcy decided that a few gray clouds were not worth brotherly bickering on Christmas morning, so she shooed everyone into the Lab, grabbing the tray of pastries on her way out.

They piled themselves onto the cushions and pillows and ottomans they'd dragged into the lab from couches and beds in the main building the night before (lab chairs were just not going to cut it for this) and started passing out gifts. 

There was a minor debate as to whether they wanted to distribute them by gifter or by recipient and then who would go first, which was finally resolved by a coin flip and the drawing of straws with the final result of Jane being the first to pass out her gifts.  

Jane had gone with books for all three of them.  The books she had gone with, though, kind of made Darcy wish that they'd let Jane go last, 'cause her own slightly excessive t-shirt selection now felt pretty inadequate.  She lovingly caressed the spines of the gorgeous five volume, leather bound Lord of the Rings set that was hers (her precious!). Two cushions to her right, Loki was paging through volume one of the three volume Encyclopedia of World Holidays that had obviously delighted him while at the same time being far more than he'd expected.  To Thor, she'd given three thoughtful, if largely unrelated books; a glossy hardcover biography of Nikolai Tesla, a neat looking book about weather called Thunder & Lightning: Weather Past, Present, Future, and a huge book of Beers of the World. Darcy thought for a moment that it seemed oddly less impressive than what she and Loki had been given until she saw the look on Thor's face when he opened the cover of the weather book.  When she glanced back to Jane, the scientist was blushing red as a holly berry with an adorably embarrassed little smile on her face. Apparently there was more to Thor's present than met the eye. Go Jane.

Loki was the next to hand out gifts, surprising Darcy by handing her a small box wrapped in the same predictably green and gold striped wrapping paper as the boxes he handed to Jane and Thor.  She looked up at him in confusion, but he just smirked at her. The reason for the smirking and the extra gift was apparent as soon as she opened the box though. 

"Do people actually make these things, or did you have to commision it?" So maybe sarcasm wasn't exactly the polite way to accept a gift, but given the yellow-gold wool hat that had somehow been knitted into a disconcertingly accurate facsimile of Loki's helmet, two foot horns and all, she figured a little sarcasm was called for. Thor made a half-choked noise in his throat and when Darcy looked over to see him staring at the hat, she straight up lost it at the look on his face. The thunder god scowled when Loki just smirked harder, and looked down at the unopened package in his lap with suspicion.  Across the way, Jane gave a soft huff of laughter as she pulled an… unusual looking lab coat out of its box - it was emerald green and had little snakes embroidered in gold around the hem. Thor started to go from scowling to glowering, but stopped halfway and squinted harder for a moment at the coat, and at the actually lovely beige-gold cardigan that came out from under it before raising a curious eyebrow at Loki. Loki half shrugged and half nodded, eyes still bright with mirth, and Thor relaxed a bit and smiled back at him. Darcy wondered if she should ask, but decided to simply chalk it up to sibling shenanigans and move on.  As Thor was only now opening his own (fairly large) box she was pretty sure the shenanigans weren’t over with.

Sure enough, at the very top of the box was a neatly folded black t-shirt with the words “I’m With Stupid” printed under an upward pointing arrow. Darcy lost it again and had to wave the others off when the looked askance at her. “You’ll see, I promise, just, keep going.”

Under the t-shirt was a crisply folded Very Nice dress shirt… in a lovely sage green, with a matching silk tie and pocket square in black,green and gold paisley, and under that was a sleek looking charcoal gray suit. The look on Thor’s face was one of long suffering ‘really Loki?’, and this this time all three of them burst out laughing. 

"Ah, 'twas just a bit of fun Thor. Bring it over here," Loki said, still chuckling, "and I'll change the color as you like."   
  
Surprisingly, Thor did not move from his seat, and the beleaguered look on his face shifted to a considering one.  "You, know, I think I'd like to try it on first. Come to think of it, these colors might not look bad on me at all."   
  
For a half second, Loki looked like he'd been frozen solid. When the moment had passed, he relaxed and shrugged. "Suit yourself."   
  
Darcy stifled a giggle at the (probably) unintentional pun, and picked herself up off the ottoman to start handing out her own presents.  Loki got his open first, and snorted out a laugh upon seeing the exact same t-shirt he’d gotten Thor sitting at the top of the box. Thor, predictably, roared in delight.  “Dude, there’s more underneath,” she managed to get out between giggles.

For Loki, she’d gotten a total of four shirts, and really it had been a challenge to stop there.  The other three, a green one that said “In My Defense, I Was Left Unsupervised”, one with “Sarcastic Comment Loading, please wait” and a picture of a loading symbol, and one that said “Immortal - So Far” actually made him grin wildly so she was calling it a win.  

Jane got a t-shirt with a “constellation” in the shape of a caffeine molecule, and one that said “Astrophysicists Need Their Space”.  Darcy had barely managed to get the third shirt ready because she’d need some help modifying it. It was a “great women of science” design, with the names and drawings of nine different women including Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace and Vera Rubin. Darcy had called in a favor from her artist sister Caitlyn, and had gotten her to draw a picture of Jane in the same style, and had printed the image onto iron on transfer paper.  It was totally worth the extra work to see Jane get misty eyed at seeing herself among her role models.

Thor didn’t seem to entirely  _ get _ the ‘Pokèvengers’ shirt, but appeared to like it well enough all the same. The ‘Hammer Time’ shirt with the picture of Mjolnir straight up delighted him, and she’d explained ‘Sun’s out Guns out’ to him a while back, so that one made him laugh.

Thor… had gone overboard.  As usual. The man was not good at the whole ‘budget’ thing and despite a steady flow of not insignificant funds from celebrity appearances and investments, she still had to restrict him to a monthly allowance.  She’d been okay letting him go over budget for present purchases for their little Christmas experiment, and she’d known about the understandably expensive custom jewelry he’d had made for Jane (gold and diamonds worked to make a lacework in the image of the constellations of Earth and Asgard entwined)... but she hadn’t expected him to spend this much on  _ her _ .  

“Holy shit, Thor, did you buy out the entire Apple store?” she said, pulling box after box of top-of-the-line Apple products out of the one big box he’d set in front of her. 

“You did say you needed a new phone soon, did you not?” 

“Yes, yes I did and I thank you for your thoughtfulness and generosity. But Thor-” She brandished the MacBook at him. “-this is way more than just a cellphone. This is ridiculous.” She put the laptop down so she could wave the iPod touch in his face. “And redundant. Like, again, the phone is great, but please tell me you kept the receipts cause we need to return about half of this.”

Oh no.  She’d triggered sad puppy!Thor. And Loki wasn’t helping matters by laughing his ass off. She extracted herself from the mountain of overpriced technology and went over to give him a hug. “Thor, it was a really great gift. Just try and remember the whole ‘budgeting’ thing a little better next time please.”  

Loki eventually stopped sniggering long enough to open the smallish box that Thor had handed him.  And immediately sobered. He stared into the box wordlessly until Thor spoke up from his place on the floor.  “I know it’s not exactly the same, and that’s it been centuries, but I thought it might be still be something you’d... appreciate.”

Loki looked up at Thor then. “It is. I do. Thank you, brother.”

Thor smiled wistfully and nodded at his brother once again, before turning to Jane with a much brighter grin.  He picked up the final box beneath the tree, the smallest of them all, and placed it in her hands.

She gasped when the box came open and she pulled out the sparkling necklace and earrings. “Oh Thor, it’s beautiful. And those are… I recognise some of the constellations, are the others…?”

“They are ones found in the skies of Asgard. It seemed appropriate.”

“Okay!” Darcy stood up and started shoving her gifts back into the big box together. “I know what that look means, it means you two need to get a room and I need to get back to mine. I need to start packing anyway.”

The two lovebirds did not appear to have heard her.   Loki, on the other hand, got up and picked her large (and heavy) box of presents off the floor in front of her and walked ahead of her out the door. 

He set the box down next to her own little tree when they got to her rooms. When she went to thank him for helping her carry it, he caught up her hand in his and placed a kiss on the palm. 

“Thank you Darcy, for all of this. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you too, Loki. It was my pleasure.”


End file.
